Charging Overnight: Rivian Dealership Learns the Hard Way

[RickLightning]

No, TaxManHog is not the fire captain in Michigan (he lives in Mass). And the fire captain doesn't know anything more than anyone else since the cause of the fire is still unknown. Maybe it will be a faulty repair, then they plugged in the Rivian to charge for the owner to pickup. Maybe it was a fault from the factory. No one knows yet.

I'm not sure I'm on board with that. I've actually seen ICE vehicle fires in my lifetime. They almost always start very slowly and grow gradually, giving ample time to get out of the vehicle. By contrast when a battery pack, particularly lithium ones, decides to go they either explode or accelerate in seconds.

If I had to pick a vehicle, knowing that it was going to catch fire for certain one day, I'd take my chances with ICE.

Same thing for methods of travel. ALL statistics say air travel is safer than car travel. But would you rather crash in a car or a plane?

Factually, lithium battery packs rarely explode, or accelerate "in seconds". Factually, when an EV does catch fire, IF the battery pack gets involved, yes it is difficult to put out. As far as the amount of time to get out of a vehicle, I'd say show us the facts you're basing your conclusion on that it's easier to escape an ICE vehicle on fire than an EV. It's simply your opinion.

It's terrifying. Just last week I installed a heat detector in my garage. If the temp rises too quickly, or if ambient reaches 130F, the alarm will sound and activate the smoke detectors inside my house also.

Terrifying? Why did you buy an EV then?

You took prudent steps to notify you of an issue. Why didn't you do that with your gas vehicles?

Yeah, old impassioned person here. Stashed is a legit observer, not an internet crackpot. EVs do catch fire and sometimes the initiation of the fire and/or the consequences are unique to the battery and e drive train systems. Some here have suggested that the cause of the fire is unknown. Sure, it could have been an ashtray fire, or a seat hearer fire, but what are the odds? It is folly to think we have fire protection systems for EVs that are as robust as the ones for ICEs, given we have been dealing with ICEs at consumer scale for 100 years. No judgements, just calling it like I see it. My day job is keeping fossil fuel infrastructure from killing people.

Never said he was a crackpot. I said the title is clickbait. The cause of the fire is unknown. Not a suggestion, fact (unless you have the report?). It could have been a 3rd party subwoofer the owner added. It could have been firebombed. It could have been a lightning strike, or a surge from the power company. They said it was plugged in, nobody said it was charging. Maybe it was done.

The likely the reason the fire was so big was that it burned in one vehicle, spread to the other 3, and then to the building because nobody noticed the fire until it was involving 3 other vehicles and the building.

In the video, he pushes training. Guess what - it's his business. He blames the dealership for parking the vehicles next to the vehicle and charging it unattended. He never states the cause of the fire, because he doesn't know.

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[SpaceEVDriver]

BEV fires happen at a rate of about 25 per 100,000 vehicles. Fossil fuel vehicles catch fire at a rate of 1,530 fires per 100,000 vehicles. Hybrid vehicles caught fire at a rate of 3,475 per 100,000 vehicles. In other words, BEVs are, by far, the safest vehicles when it comes to fire.

 

[fhteagle]

BEV fires happen at a rate of about 25 per 100,000 vehicles. Fossil fuel vehicles catch fire at a rate of 1,530 fires per 100,000 vehicles. Hybrid vehicles caught fire at a rate of 3,475 per 100,000 vehicles. In other words, BEVs are, by far, the safest vehicles when it comes to fire.

While I support your premise, the data you're quoting (without explicit attribution) by AutoInsuranceEZ has been debunked nine ways to Sunday. Even StacheD has a video on it.

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

While I support your premise, the data you're quoting (without explicit attribution) by AutoInsuranceEZ has been debunked nine ways to Sunday. Even StacheD has a video on it.

Those data are from the NTSB, which, yes, I should have cited. AutoInsuranceEZ copied the data from the NTSB.

All of the “debunking” I’ve seen was not debunking. It was “well, we only see a few fires in EVs [despite the large numbers of EVs on the road], so I think we don’t have enough statistics.” That’s not debunking, that’s failing to understand statistics. And, no, those data were not just for fatalities, they were from all reported vehicle fires.

At the time the data were put out by the NTSB in 2022, there had been zero reported traction-battery-related fires in the >300,000 Nissan Leaf EVs and ~17 fires in >350,000 Teslas. Zero incidents of fires doesn’t mean we can’t evaluate the safety of the Nissan Leaf relative to a similar ICEv.

Here are a few of independent research reports:

• Fire Incidents, Trends, and Risk Mitigation Framework of Electrical Vehicle Cars in Australia
  • "The study reveals an average EV fire frequency of six fires per million EVs in Australia, aligning with the global average."
  • https://www.mdpi.com/2571-6255/6/8/325
  • 2023
• Electric Vehicle Fire Risk Assessment Framework using Fault Tree Analysis
  • Using a meticulous weighted average approach, the annual EV fire frequency for each country was deduced, revealing an average annual EV fire rate of 2.44 × 10-4 fires per registered EV. [That’s 24.4 EV fires per 100,000 vehicles.]
  • https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10873543/pdf/openreseurope-3-17853.pdf
  • 2024
• Electric Vehicle Fire Safety in Enclosed Spaces
  • In Sweden:
    • Relative frequency of EV and PHEV fires 2018-2020: 2e-5 to 6e-5 (6 per 100,000)
    • Relative frequency of ICEV fires 2018-2020: 70e-5 to 80e-5 (70 to 80 per 100,000)
  • https://ri.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:1744882/FULLTEXT01.pdf
  • 2023
• Australia’s Department of Defense, EV Fire Safe
  • "Our intial research findings, based on global EV battery fires from 2010-2020, indicate a 0.0012% of a passenger electric vehicle battery catching fire." [1.2 per 100,000]
  • https://www.evfiresafe.com/ev-fire-faqs
  • 2022

 

[Yellow Buddy]

I'm not sure I'm on board with that. I've actually seen ICE vehicle fires in my lifetime. They almost always start very slowly and grow gradually, giving ample time to get out of the vehicle. By contrast when a battery pack, particularly lithium ones, decides to go they either explode or accelerate in seconds.

If I had to pick a vehicle, knowing that it was going to catch fire for certain one day, I'd take my chances with ICE.

Same thing for methods of travel. ALL statistics say air travel is safer than car travel. But would you rather crash in a car or a plane?

This, in decades of driving. I’ve seen a number of cars on fire, I would guess half a dozen; significantly more 18 wheelers, but I’ve never seen an EV on fire, only in articles.

That’s said, I would be interested in distribution. # of fires per EV sold, or per 100 miles driven. That may change the data a bit.

 

[flabrent]

The "horseless carriage" has been causing fires before and since Karl Benz built the first gasoline powered "automobile".

 

[davehu]

Yes, EVs catch fire, but at a rate that's something like 20 to 100x _less_ than combustion vehicles, depending on whose data you believe most. EV fires are more likely to be indicated electronically, by smoke, or popping sounds before full involvement, which gives occupants more time to leave the vehicle or scene vs combustion.

I don't think we need to hush hush that, let's look it in the face and do what we need to in order to get the EV fires risk number down even further.

EV fires, when they happen, grow. Gas fires explode almost immediately.

 

[Newton]

Gasoline fires are easier to put out because there really isn’t anything left of the car after the gas tank explodes. I passed a VW bus that was on fire and though we were several lanes over it was surprisingly hot and the flames were much bigger than you would expect. We probably should have done something else.

 

[chriserx]

I am neither an expert in fire suppression nor an expert electronics. That being said I had been a volunteer firefighter for 15 years and my chosen hobby is in electronics and programming. There is a kernel of truth in what everyone is saying on both sides of the divide. But there is still data to be collected. EVs have an inherent advantage in the data, especially in NTSB data. Mass produced EVs are younger than their ICE equivalents giving less data and skewing it more rosy. Only time will tell. I've been to about 50 vehicular calls in that time, less than 10 were fire related and 2 were fatal. In my, albeit limited, experience extreme impact events where the gas tank was compromised, none resulted in a fire, only hazmat cleanup. The kernel here is that should the protection of the battery pack be compromised, it will almost certainly, at minimum, produce smoke. The result, from the wider public, is going to be "that car is on fire", even steam from an overheating ICE vehicle results in vehicle fire calls. ICE vehicles have a very predictable fire profile that we've had experience with, and trained on for over a century. EVs are newer on the scene and liquid electrolyte batteries have a (somewhat deserved) reputation as being both fragile and volatile. Once an NMC battery ignites, it isn't exactly a cakewalk to put it out, I've destroyed a couple myself on accident. When combined in close proximity the risk multiplies, as in one bad apple. And finally combine everything, you have less that experienced firemen, fighting a fire that really wants to stay lit, in the age of social media and a natural human fascination with fire, you get what we have today, flame wars.

Be nice. Wait for the data. Enjoy the drive.

 

[Maineiac12]

To be fair, almost all YouTube video titles and thumbnails are clickbait. It’s how they play the game to get views. I wouldn’t read too much into it. It’s the content that matters.

 

[RickLightning]

To be fair, almost all YouTube video titles and thumbnails are clickbait. It’s how they play the game to get views. I wouldn’t read too much into it. It’s the content that matters.

The issue isn't the YouTube video title, it is the thread title being the same, and makes this forum a source to that message in AI and searches.

My post got 12 likes so apparently I am not the only one that thinks that.

 

[TaxmanHog]

When I post videos, I generally use the creators video title.

The 'narrative' above the video link is the creators own description.

Who cares what drives the Ai and web-bot's sampling from this or any forum!!

I appreciate all the varying opinions about this incident, the forum is not just an echo chamber of one members opinion.

 

[Lightning Rod]

The title says Rivian learns lesson. Is the lesson, don't charge overnight?

 

[RickLightning]

When I post videos, I generally use the creators video title.

The 'narrative' above the video link is the creators own description.

Who cares what drives the Ai and web-bot's sampling from this or any forum!!

I appreciate all the varying opinions about this incident, the forum is not just an echo chamber of one members opinion.

The internet is basically an echo chamber of everything posted on it. Search engines (and AI) search everything and then repeat it. The more fake / false information is posted and repeated, the more it is believed. As EV owners, we come across people with totally incorrect understanding of various things about EVs. "They catch fire" "They can't be driven in winter" "You can't charge in the rain" "You can't drive in the rain"...

The more crap is repeated, the more it is believed.

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